


Vignettes

by pogopop



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Itdoesntendwell, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14371764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pogopop/pseuds/pogopop
Summary: Dad is the shining sun in his solar system, his orbital focus. Dad bathes him in warmth, and Matt knows that all he will ever need is to make Dad proud. He sits on a bench next to Dad, swinging his legs and licking an ice cream, the sky a blue bowl above. A reward for another perfect test score. Passersby notice Dad's black eye and split slip, but Dad ignores them so Matt does, too; no one can touch them. Sweat trickles on his brow and Hell's Kitchen swarms around them.





	Vignettes

**Author's Note:**

> Matt at different ages. I can't get a clear timeline, so if it's off you'll just need to substitute your own ages. 
> 
> I don't really know where this came from. I thought that it was going to be about the ways Matt perceives the world. But it's really not that at all. It gets darker and darker, so don't expect fluff.

**4.**  
Four is the apple in his ABC book. Red and shiny. Yellow is the L-L-L lion. It roars and he roars louder. He is noise and energy, jumping and stretching. Matt The Lion springs off the couch and sees his purple car on the chair. His car leaps off the chair and zoooooms across the floor, racing, racing. It turns sharply, tyres screeching, engine revving. Then CRASH it hits Dad's foot. Dad laughs and scoops him up. Aftershave and scratchy stubble on his cheek. Warm and so big. Dad lifts him over his head. “Aaah Matty, you can fly!” The floor is so far away, he can touch the ceiling, and Dad is the reason he flies. He is brave and safe. Dad flips him upside down, dangles him by an ankle, and Matt squeals with joy. Dad’s smile lights his whole face like the sun, even his eyes and Matt thinks his eyebrows smile, too. And Matt knows that he is the one who put that smile there, and the light of Dad's smile spreads to his own face. So he shrieks louder and wrestles Dad's legs. At night he wakes, with his covers kicked off and his legs cold. It's dark and scary but he is big and he can make it to Dad's room without crying, his feet padding on the cold floor. He sneaks in under the blankets and presses himself along Dad's back. Dad mumbles and rolls over and wraps him up and everything is right in Matt's world.

 **7.**  
Seven is reading. The words lifting from the page, spiralling around him as mountain and castles, heroes and villains, galaxies he can only try to imagine. This is something magical and precious. Fiction, non-fiction, Matt devours it all. The library is a glowing treasure trove, and Matt is going to read everything, know everything. He's flying through the galaxy, but Dad pulls him safely home. Fogwell’s is sweat and grunts. Old stains on the mats, tired but lived-in and real. Dad is pure power and focus, pushing himself hard and the other guy even harder, bruises in a rainbow from deep purple to delicate yellow. Dad is the shining sun in his solar system, his orbital focus. Dad bathes him in warmth, and Matt knows that all he will ever need is to make Dad proud. He sits on a bench next to Dad, swinging his legs and licking an ice cream, the sky a blue bowl above. A reward for another perfect test score. Passersby notice Dad's black eye and split slip, but Dad ignores them so Matt does, too; no one can touch them. Sweat trickles on his brow and Hell's Kitchen swarms around them.

 **9.**  
Nine is pain and darkness. People looming suddenly from the shapeless black. Clothes which chafe, smells which hit him like a physical slap, and the noise... Dad weeping quietly when he thinks Matt can't hear. But Matt can hear everything. The strain in Dad's voice slices through Matt. He is the cause of this worry, and he needs to do his best for Dad. Dad hits harder, trains harder. He tells Matt not worry, that he needs to work hard and use his brain. Matt sits in his new, close world, and tries to make sense of what is out there beyond what he can reach. He's learning to read the world, safe in Dad's gravitational pull. There are bumps on the paper under Matt's fingers, which make no sense and make him so frustrated he wants to hit something... Then suddenly they open worlds. Braille is a beautiful code which lets Matt fly again to galaxies of discovery. He reads to Dad, and can hear the wonder in his father's voice. Dad still believes in him, he knows that Matt's brain is more important than his eyes. So Matt resolves to prove him right.

 **10.**  
Ten is isolation. The ghost of a cold and bloody face under his fingers. No Dad, no sun. Can Matt exist in this desperate cold? Bare rooms and nuns in whispering robes and the gulf of grief. He's flooded and overloaded and can't find his focus, everything slips away into furious chaos. He's spun away out of orbit and he's spiralling off into the nothing. Then there's Stick, with a stick. Is this guy really as literal as that? But through the physical and metal blows, Matt discovers that his focus is still there. And it's more powerful than he imagined. Stick talks about war and purpose, but always in riddles that Matt can't decode. But he does his best, gets to work. Maybe it's the two of them, now, against the world. Until Stick is gone, vanished into the void and Matt has no idea what he did, only that his best wasn't good enough.

 **14.**  
Fourteen is stubble under his fingers and his voice betraying him, his school a sardine can of teenagers with rampant hormones. The pheromones make his head spin. His own raging libido makes his head spin. Navigating this changed world makes his head spin. Does he look like a teenager should? How can he choose clothes that will let him blend in? The nuns can't or won't help with something so worldly. So he concentrates on making his dad proud, staying at the top of the class. Incense and stone and the routine of church. The noise of the city doesn't penetrate the walls so much in a church, like God is shielding him from the everything outside. He doesn't have friends, doesn't need anyone else. Everyone leaves, anyway, so he's looking after himself.

 **18.**  
Eighteen is Matt alone, an island in the teeming sea of Manhattan. Stretching out his senses, leaving the known of the Kitchen behind, just out of reach. A new campus, new services to navigate, new structures and routines. And the knowledge that he's a curiosity, attracting stares, his white cane marking him as an oddity. He gets that everywhere, but this time it feels like his very existence is treated with skepticism, as though blindness is a barrier to learning. So he does what he does best, and he gets to work. He'll prove to them all that he deserves his place here, and more. He'll do what his Dad told him he could. He demands the access he needs, and he fights his way to the top of every class. He's an adult now, and he's capable and independent.

 **20.**  
Twenty is sex and study. Girls with curves and soft skin, hair that tickles his face and throat. Fruity smells, musky smells. Guys with hard planes of muscle, stubbly chins and wiry hair on their legs. And the people who sit somewhere in between, their no fucks given individuality making Matt feel less of an outsider. The sex is fantastic, but it's not why he's here and it's always secondary. The soothing smell of glue and paper in the library, the whir of air conditioning and murmur of voices. A hideaway if Matt ever had one, and a home if he lets himself pretend that he still has one. He tops every class, but he can always work harder. Sometimes, he can convince himself that he isn't still spinning in the void.

 **22.**  
Twenty two is Foggy. Matt has no idea why this guy seems to like him or how long he'll stay, but for now he's going to enjoy it. The banter is great. Foggy doesn't seem bothered by Matt's particularities, and Matt can almost always hear a smile in his voice. Foggy quickly gets the hang of sighted guide, and Matt allows himself to like it. Foggy makes things fun, even whole weekends cramming for tests. They study and they drink and they get really close in a way Matt never imagined for himself. Foggy even takes Matt home to the noise of his large family, which is both disorienting and warmly comforting. Matt stores away the feeling of being welcomed and accepted, and later he takes it out and holds it in his palm, the warmth flowing out and filling his chest. Foggy snores and farts and eats terrible food, but Matt forgives it all as he's captured in a new gravitational field.

 **23.**  
Twenty three is Elektra. Hedonism. Sex and alcohol and fast cars and a luxury Matt has never imagined. The purr of her voice, stroking his skin with her words and her tongue. Matt gives himself over completely. He though the sun was gone forever, but here is drawn into her orbit and the warmth overtakes him. It is the best he can imagine and he fucking loves her. The clamour of the world falls away, and the only thing he can detect is a small pull in the far distance. He turns his back on Foggy, drowns himself in her. Her hair and her accent and her smell and just being himself. They dance wild and free bruising each other then kissing it better. Matt is completed, subsumed. Then, of course, she is gone and he's exposed and alone, cold again. And the gentle pull comes closer, a cautious warmth. Foggy picks him up, all concern and frustration, tenderly collecting his pieces and assembling him back into a Matt-shape. Somehow, inexplicably, Foggy is still there. But it can't possibly last.

 **25.**  
Twenty five is rooftops and freedom. He fights for the people of his city, lifting up the downtrodden. And he seeks out the evil, punching it away. Hiding in the safe dark, free to be who he really is, letting the devil out. Is there such a thing as an avenging devil? The stench of cutthroat ambition and soullessness. A new persona Matt hadn't quite realised he was holding inside comes bursting free. And deception, deception, deception. Matt's been deceiving for years, but somehow this feels worse. Deeper and raw. He feels anger simmering inside him, threatening to boil over. He tears himself from the mire, desperate to escape the stench. And he drags Foggy with him, his last chance at redemption.

 **27.**  
Twenty seven is the end of Nelson and Murdock. Matt is fearsome in court and ferocious on the streets. He figuratively eviscerates and literally pulverises. The thrash and pain of the Kitchen tear at him and he can't make it better. He taints everything. He rails and roars and shucks off the mild-mannered blind man. The rage spews out of him and consumes everything in its path. Until finally he is alone in the dark, no one staying to be corrupted by him. This is the way it was always going to be. This is better for everyone. He doesn't need the sun. He can't see it, anyway.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always eagerly received.
> 
> I started a [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/runpogorun) so come and follow me!


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